Lexeo Team

R. Nolan Townsend has served as Lexeo Therapeutics Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors since January 2020. Lexeo Therapeutics is a New York City-based, clinical stage biotechnology company that aims to apply the transformational science of gene therapy to address some of the world’s most devastating genetic diseases.

Prior to Lexeo, Mr. Townsend held roles as President, Pfizer Rare Disease for the North America region and President, Pfizer Rare Disease for the International markets; overseeing overall strategy, the cross functional organization and operating budget in those regions.  Mr. Townsend has over a decade of experience with Pfizer first joining the company in Corporate Finance and subsequently in roles of increasing responsibility across Corporate Finance, Corporate Strategy, Operations, Marketing, General Management and Commercial leadership in Pfizer’s New York headquarters, Asia, Africa/Middle East and Europe.  Prior to Pfizer, Mr. Townsend worked in the healthcare investment banking group at Lehman Brothers, advising healthcare companies on strategic financing transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Townsend serves on the Board of Directors of Arbor Biotechnologies, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), and Life Science Cares New York in addition to an appointment to New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Life Sciences Advisory Council.

Mr. Townsend received his Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

A pioneer and thought leader in cardiovascular gene therapy, Dr. Eric Adler formerly served as Chief Scientific Officer at Lexeo since joining in 2022. Prior to this role, Dr. Adler served as Professor of Medicine, head of the Heart Failure Section, Director of the Strauss Center for Cardiomyopathy, and the Czarina and Humberto S. Lopez Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Cardiology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Adler’s work has led to the development of a novel cardiovascular gene therapy candidate entering late-stage clinical development.

Dr. Adler’s research is focused on the study and treatment of cardiomyopathy and he has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals on the topic. Dr. Adler is currently an associate editor of Circulation Heart Failure, and has served on leadership, grant review, and guideline committees for the American Heart Association, the Heart Failure Society of America, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant, and the National Institute of Health. Dr. Adler earned his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. José Manuel (Manny) Otero joined Lexeo in 2024. Manny was previously Chief Technical Officer at Auregen Biotherapeutics, leading R&D and manufacturing in the development of autologous, 3D bioprinted cell-based restorative anatomy (cartilage based), in Phase 1b/2 clinical development for patients suffering from microtia. Prior to joining Auregen in 2023, Manny was Chief Technology Officer at Turnstone Biologics (NASDAQ: TSBX), joining in 2017 and responsible for building and leading bioprocess development, manufacturing, supply chain, quality control and CMC. His team enabled the development of several clinical-stage viral immunotherapies, across multiple jurisdictions, and later, pivoted to develop a TIL cell therapy platform (Selected TIL) currently in Phase 1b/2 clinical development. He came to Turnstone from his position as Vice President, Bioprocess Development and Manufacturing of Seres Therapeutics, Inc., (NASDAQ: MCRB) a leader in human microbiome therapeutics.  Manny was similarly an early member of CMC leadership, oversaw the expansion of the bioprocess development and manufacturing group and was the overall corporate team leader for the first synthetic microbiome therapeutic entering US Phase 1b clinical studies.

Prior to Seres Therapeutics, Manny was Director of Engineering and an Integrated Development & Supply Team Leader within Vaccine Manufacturing Sciences & Commercialization at Merck. He specialized in supporting development programs for the Varivax™, Zostavax™, ProQuad™, and MMRII™ franchises. Prior to this role, he was Head of Fermentation Process Development, Vaccine Process Development within Merck Research Labs. Manny joined Merck in 2002 and was part of the team that developed GARDASIL™ – a S. cerevisiae based virus-like particle human papillomavirus vaccine. Manny received his Ph.D. in Biological and Chemical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology as a Merck Doctoral Fellow, a Master of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kyle Rasbach joined Lexeo in 2024. Most recently, Dr. Rasbach served as the Chief Business Officer at Zentalis Pharmaceuticals. Before Zentalis, he was a Portfolio Manager for Eventide Asset Management’s $1.8 billion healthcare & life sciences fund, a Managing Director for Eventide Ventures, and a Senior Research Analyst for other Eventide investments. Prior to joining Eventide, Dr. Rasbach was a Managing Partner at Pappas Capital, a life science venture capital firm. Earlier in his career, he was an equity research analyst and Vice President at T. Rowe Price, where he managed pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, and biotechnology investments representing over $40 billion in assets under management, and an equity research associate and Vice President at Cowen and Company, where he covered global pharmaceutical equities.

Dr. Rasbach holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences as well as a PharmD from the Medical University of South Carolina, and he completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Bruce Spiegelman at the Harvard Medical School. He also holds an MBA from The Citadel.

Ms. Robertson joined Lexeo in 2022 and leads multiple functions including legal, compliance, corporate governance, human resources, information technology, information security, and facilities strategies and activities. Prior to Lexeo, Ms. Robertson served as Chief Counsel to Pfizer’s Oncology Business Unit and has held other senior legal roles including as Chief Counsel for Pfizer’s Rare Disease Business Unit, leading its global legal team for five years. Across positions at Pfizer, Ms. Robertson counseled clients on a range of business and legal matters, including commercialization, disclosure, business development, alliance management, clinical development, intellectual property issues, and litigation. Before joining Pfizer in 2010, Ms. Robertson spent 10 years in private practice with a large international law firm in New York and Washington D.C., engaged in complex commercial litigation with a healthcare law focus. Ms. Robertson holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

Sandi See Tai, MD, joined Lexeo in 2023. Prior to Lexeo, Dr. See Tai was VP & Development Head for Rare Disease at Pfizer where she was responsible for setting the Rare Disease internal portfolio strategy and delivering its clinical development portfolio of investigational products and in-line assets. Dr. See Tai has served as the Medicine Team Lead for clinical programs across multiple therapeutic areas including Rare Cardiovascular, Neurology, Renal and Pulmonary disease areas including leading the late-stage clinical development program of tafamidis for ATTR cardiomyopathy (ATTR-ACT), which achieved global regulatory approvals, and leading the Phase 3 LMNA dilated cardiomyopathy clinical program. In addition to late-stage clinical development, Dr. See Tai was responsible for strategic clinical planning for early-stage development candidates, such as those for other genetic cardiomyopathies and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

With almost 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. See Tai has held multiple roles of increased scope and responsibilities across Global Medical Affairs in Transplantation at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals before moving into clinical development at Pfizer.

Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. See Tai was Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Drexel University College of Medicine and Attending Physician in Pediatric Nephrology at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, where she had also completed her General Pediatrics residency and Pediatric Nephrology fellowship. Dr. See Tai received her MD from Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston.

Julie Allen joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President, Clinical Operations, in 2023. Most recently, Ms. Allen served as Head of Development Operations at Global Blood Therapeutics where she led a clinical operations team overseeing nearly 20 early and late-stage clinical studies simultaneously, including those that led to the accelerated approval of Oxbryta, the first approved treatment for sickle cell disease.  Prior to GBT, Ms. Allen served as Head of Americas for Clinical Operations at EMD Serono and earlier, Regional Head of Site Monitoring & Management at AbbVie. Ms. Allen holds a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of Windsor, Ontario Canada as well as certifications in program and project management.

Dr. Ranjan (Ron) Batra is the Vice President of Discovery Research and Translation at Lexeo Therapeutics. Previously, Ron served as the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at LocanaBio where he developed programmable RNA-targeted therapeutics for rare diseases such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Myotonic Dystrophy and childhood epilepsy. For his work at LocanaBio, Ron was awarded the 2019 Biocom Catalyst award for biotech leaders under 40 in California, 20 Under 40 Upcoming Biopharma Leaders of 2021 by Endpoints News, and Top 25 Health Care Leaders in San Diego by Healthcare Tech News in 2022. Prior to joining LocanaBio, Ron worked at Verily Life Sciences. Before his industry career, Ron worked on RNA mediated disorders at UCSD and University of Florida. Ron is an expert in RNA splicing and RNA-targeted therapeutics, and has published over 35 publications and patents in RNA biology and RNA therapeutics.

Dr. Jordan Baumhardt joined Lexeo in 2025 as the Vice President of Corporate Development, after previously serving as an advisor and board observer of Lexeo during his role as an investor at Eventide Asset Management. Jordan received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Research from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and worked as an investor in various roles at Eventide Asset Management, LifeSci Capital, and Flagship Pioneering. Most recently, Jordan served as VP, Corporate Development at Zentalis Pharmaceuticals.

Leslie DiRisio joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President, Project and Portfolio Management in 2023. Prior to Lexeo, Ms. DiRisio has served in roles of increasing responsibility within Project, Portfolio, Operations, Alliance Management, and Governance at Pfizer. Most recently, Ms. DiRisio served in Pfizer’s Global R&D organization, leading the team responsible for metrics, analytics, and reporting essential to convert portfolio-level data into performance intelligence and strategic business insights to enhance delivery and execution against key development milestones. Prior her latest Pfizer role, Ms. DiRisio directed Governance processes for late-stage clinical programs, led medicine teams and joint development teams, as well as worked in a number of roles within clinical operations. Ms. DiRisio holds a BS in Microbiology, MS in Project Management, and an MPH in Epidemiology.

Timothy Fenn joined Lexeo in 2021. Tim has worked in several industry and biotech roles, leading drug development teams and the supporting biophysical methods used to characterize and release biologics. His experience includes Merck in Discovery Biologics, Boehringer Ingelheim in Antibody Discovery, and helping build the preclinical and CMC functions at Prevail Therapeutics. Over the course of this work, Tim has been involved in the successful CMC packages for multiple INDs and release of multiple drug batches for use in clinical studies. Additionally, Tim has led comparability studies to enable the transition of gene therapy products from early phase to larger, scalable processes, with the intent of easing commercial drug manufacturing.

Tim has a Ph.D. In biochemistry from Brandeis University, and did postdoctoral work in structural biology at Stanford University.

Morgan Jones joined Lexeo in 2024. Prior to Lexeo, Morgan was Executive Director, Business Development and Corporate Strategy at Verve Therapeutics. While at Verve, Morgan was responsible for leading all business development efforts, including transactions and Alliance Management, and executed on deals contributing ~$145M in capital. Prior to Verve, Morgan held roles in Pfizer’s Corporate Development team and was involved in mergers and acquisitions, collaborations, licensing transactions, and equity investments, most recently for Pfizer’s Rare Disease business. Morgan started her career in finance, working at Jefferies in the Healthcare Investment Banking Group and at PNC Bank in the Debt Capital Markets and Corporate Banking groups. Morgan holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University. Morgan has a personal passion for neurodevelopmental rare diseases and has a younger brother with Angelman Syndrome.

Richie Khanna, PhD joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President, Non-clinical and Bioanalytical Development in 2021. Prior to Lexeo, Dr. Khanna worked at Amicus Therapeutics for 16 years starting as employee #7, leading the comprehensive Non-clinical Development programs. Dr. Khanna established an In Vivo Pharmacology Department of 15 scientists at Bachelors, Masters, and PhD levels and led all IND-enabling animal studies for small molecules, Biologics, and AAV gene therapy programs. Dr. Khanna’s significant non-clinical achievement was global approval of Galafold for Fabry disease and successful rolling non-clinical BLA submission for ATB200 for Pompe disease. Dr. Khanna received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Delhi, India and obtained first post-doctoral research experience in Biomedical Science from Tufts University and second in Neuroscience from Rutgers University.

Ryan McHenry joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President, Corporate Controller in 2022. Prior to Lexeo, Mr. McHenry served as Vice President, Controller and Assistant Secretary at Sio Gene Therapies, where he oversaw the SEC filing, financial reporting, technical accounting, internal control, income tax and procurement functions, and executed a transformational international corporate structure simplification effort. Prior to Sio, Mr. McHenry worked at Biocept, where he scaled-up the accounting and SEC reporting functions following its IPO, and CareFusion (since acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Company), where he led accounting for M&A transactions among other responsibilities. At the start of his career, Mr. McHenry held roles of increasing responsibility at PwC in the audit and assurance practice focusing on publicly traded and private clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology/life sciences and defense contractor industries. Mr. McHenry received his BSBA, Accounting and his Certificate in Advanced Accountancy from Boston University. He is an actively licensed CPA in New York and California, as well as a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Rand Monaghan joined Lexeo Therapeutics in 2021 and currently serves as Vice President, Finance. Prior to Lexeo, Mr. Monaghan held multiples roles across finance and strategic planning at Bristol Myers Squibb following its acquisition of Celgene Corporation. Prior to Bristol Myers Squibb, he served in the Corporate Strategy group responsible for the sale of Celgene and the divestiture of Otezla to Amgen. Mr. Monaghan started his career in Citigroup’s Healthcare Investment Banking division focused on life sciences clients. Mr. Monaghan received his Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Science in Finance and Accounting from Lehigh University.

Jenny Speer joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President, People Experience in 2023. Following her passion for enabling brilliant people who do impactful work, Ms. Speer has held people leadership roles at several biotech startups. Most recently, Ms. Speer served as the head of people at Mammoth Biosciences, scaling the organization from 40 to over 200 employees. Ms. Speer holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism from Boston University.

Keith Wonnacott, PhD joined Lexeo Therapeutics as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs in 2021. Prior to joining Lexeo, Dr. Wonnacott was an Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs at Pfizer where he had responsibility for gene therapies within the Rare Disease Business Unit. He provided guidance on regulatory strategy and led regulatory policy for the gene therapy portfolio, which included advancing 3 late-stage programs into phase 3 clinical trials. Dr. Wonnacott also worked at Novartis where he was a Director of regulatory CMC and led the development of Module 3 for the Kymriah BLA, which became the first gene therapy product to receive FDA approval in 2017. Dr. Wonnacott also held roles of increasing responsibility at FDA at the start of his career. He spent 13 years in the Division of Cell and Gene Therapies at FDA, the last 10 of which were as Chief of the Cellular Therapies Branch. He is a respected leader in the field, speaker, and published author, and is currently serving as the Chair of the Regulatory Affairs Committee for the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. Dr. Wonnacott received his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University and his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University.

Ronald Crystal is a physician-scientist and pioneer in In vivo gene therapy. He is a Professor and Chairman, Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, previously Chief, Pulmonary Branch, NHLBI. He also directs the Weill Cornell Belfer Gene Therapy Core facility, with 45 faculty/staff, including viral vector, pre-clinical translation, toxicology, regulatory and GMP manufacturing expertise.

​Dr. Crystal has 14 approved gene therapy investigational new drug applications with experience in CNS, cardiac, pulmonary and liver human gene therapy.

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Dr. Crystal is the founder/co-founder of several gene therapy companies including GenVec, Adverum and XyloCor.

Dr. Rajiv Patni was formerly Chief Research and Development Officer at Reata Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Biogen for $7.3 billion), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company that received approval for Skyclarys, the first FDA-approved therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia. Prior to this role, Dr. Patni served as Chief Medical Officer at several public, small-cap, commercial-stage biopharmaceutical companies including Portola (acquired by Alexion for $1.4 billion) and Global Blood Therapeutics (acquired by Pfizer for $5.4 billion) and at those companies, Dr. Patni oversaw the clinical studies leading to the approvals of Andexxa and Oxbryta.  Dr. Patni joined these companies at inflection points in their research and development growth trajectories and significantly supported their successful acquisitions. Over his 24-year industry tenure in global product development, Dr. Patni has contributed to the development of 21 new chemical entities in several therapeutic areas including cardiology, diabetology, hepatology, neurology, and benign hematology. His experience in fostering successful teams from 35 to 250 colleagues contributed to the approval of 11 medicines from the US FDA, EMA, and other regulatory agencies. The recent approvals include medicines for several rare diseases such as pulmonary arterial hypertension, advanced Parkinson’s disease, sickle cell disease, and Friedrich’s ataxia. Dr. Patni received his MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City as part of an accelerated BS/MD Program. He completed his internal medicine residency and adult cardiology fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also in New York City, where he continued as an attending physician-scientist before joining the biopharmaceutical industry.

Steven Altschuler, MD, joined Lexeo as Chairman in January 2021, bringing nearly 20 years of experience building and leading world-class, integrated, translational, value-based health care systems and transformational biotechnology companies. Dr. Altschuler currently serves as Managing Director of Healthcare Ventures at Ziff Capital Partners and was previously chair of the board of directors at Spark Therapeutics (now part of Roche) for six years, from its founding until it was acquired in 2019. Dr. Altschuler previously co-founded Spark Therapeutics to develop and commercialize the preclinical and clinical gene therapy programs advanced at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and other institutions. Dr. Altschuler served as Spark’s board chair from its founding through its acquisition in 2019, which included leading the company through a successful transition to a public company and the launch of an approved commercial product, which was the first gene therapy for an inherited disease approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. Dr. Altschuler formerly held chief executive positions at CHOP and University of Miami Health System. He is a member of the board of directors of WW (formerly Weight Watchers International), Orchard Therapeutics, AsclepiX Therapeutics, ImVaX and Platelet Biogenesis. He is also an independent trustee of the Brigham and Women’s Physician Organization at Mass General Brigham. Dr. Altschuler holds a B.A. in Mathematics and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

Mette Kirstine Agger is a Senior Advisor and board member for numerous biopharmaceutical companies, where she utilizes her extensive industry experience as a strategic advisor. Ms. Agger currently serves on several boards, including Abzu, KLIFO, ScPharmaceuticals, D.O.F (an independent Danish foundation) and C.V Obel A/S, an investment company.

Previously, Ms. Agger was a managing partner of Lundbeckfonden Ventures, a life science venture fund, and later served as a Senior Advisor for Lundbeckfonden BioCapital (succeeding Lundbeckfonden Ventures). Earlier in her career, she was a co-founder of 7TM Pharma A/S, a biotech company engaged in therapeutic drug discovery and development and served as its Chief Executive Officer from founding to 2009. Prior to founding 7TM Pharma, Ms. Agger was part of the management team of NeuroSearch A/S, a former drug research and development company.

Ms. Agger graduated with an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Copenhagen and has an M.B.A. from Henley Business School University of Reading.

Paula Cholmondeley currently serves as Principal of The Sorrel Group, a company focused on individualized board education. Ms. Cholmondeley is also a member of the Board of Directors of Terex Corporation (NYSE) and Bank OZK (NASDAQ).

Ms. Cholmondeley’s previous public company boards include Dentsply Corporation, Ultralife Inc., Armco Steel Inc., Albany International, Mineral Technologies, and Nationwide Mutual Funds. During her executive career, Ms. Cholmondeley has had a profit and loss responsibility for global divisions with revenues up to $750M, served as CFO of companies with revenues up to $2B, brought new technologies to market, served as head of strategy for two large corporations and held seats on numerous non-profit boards. Across her board career, Ms. Cholmondeley has served on the audit, investments, governance, strategy, corporate social responsibility, and compensation committees across various companies.

Ms. Cholmondeley currently chairs the Terex audit committee, and is a member of the faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors In-Board Room and Board Advisory Services where she teaches and conducts board evaluations. Ms. Cholmondeley is a NACD Certified Director and a Board Leadership Fellow. In 2015, she was elected to NACD Directorship 100. She also holds NACD certifications in Cyber Risk Oversight and Digital Transformation.

Brenda Cooperstone, MD, joined Lexeo’s board as an Independent Director in 2023. Dr. Cooperstone currently serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of Senti Biosciences and Gandeeva Therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Cooperstone served as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer of Rare Disease at Pfizer Inc. and Site Leader for Pfizer’s Pennsylvania campus. Prior to this role, Dr. Cooperstone held varied leadership positions at Pfizer and Wyeth in both Clinical Development and Global Medical Affairs with oversight of a wide range of therapeutic areas, including both small and large molecules in early through late phase development and in-line support.

Dr. Cooperstone earned her M.D. from McGill University, completed her residency in pediatrics at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, her clinical fellowship in pediatric nephrology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Renal Electrolyte Division. She is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and Pediatric Nephrology and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Pediatrics. Dr. Cooperstone was on staff at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, GA as a Pediatric Nephrology before joining the pharmaceutical industry.

Reinaldo Diaz is a Venture Partner of Longitude Capital. Concurrently, Mr. Diaz serves as the Chief Business Officer of Opna-IO, a Longitude portfolio company, as well as a consultant for various companies in the healthcare industry, including Auven Therapeutics, where he previously served as Managing Director from 2008 to 2018. Prior to joining Auven Therapeutics, he was a Managing Member and co-founder of Diaz & Altschul Capital Management (D&A Capital). Prior to founding D&A Capital, Mr. Diaz was a Managing Director and Head of the Healthcare group at Schroder Wertheim & Co. Mr. Diaz started his career at PaineWebber, where he was a key member of the PaineWebber Healthcare Investment Banking Group and President of PaineWebber Development Corporation. He currently serves on the board of Inozyme (INZY). Mr. Diaz holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Harvard University.

Mr. Van Hauwermeiren is co-founder, CEO and a Board Member of argenx, a global immunology company valued at almost $25 billion focused on severe autoimmune diseases. During his 15-year tenure, he has overseen the development and launch of the company’s first commercial product, efgartigimod, for the treatment of multiple severe autoimmune diseases, and he has expanded the company’s footprint across Europe, the U.S. and Asia. Additionally during his time at argenx, Mr. Van Hauwermeiren has secured more than $4 billion in funding through equity raises and business development transactions with major pharmaceutical companies. Prior to argenx, Mr. Van Hauwermeiren held roles with increasing levels of responsibility at Ablynx and Procter & Gamble. Mr. Van Hauwermeiren also serves on the Board of Directors of iTeos Pharmaceuticals, and previously served on the Board of Directors of RayzeBio prior to the company’s acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in bioengineering from Ghent University and an Executive MBA from The Vlerick School of Management.

Mr. Tolga Tanguler is the Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a global leader in RNA interference therapeutics. He has been instrumental in transforming Alnylam into a fully integrated biotech company, expanding its commercial footprint both domestically and internationally, and is currently leading the launch of Amvuttra, an RNAi treatment for TTR amyloid cardiomyopathy.

With over 25 years of global leadership experience, Tolga has spearheaded commercialization efforts across various therapeutic areas, overseeing the launch and growth of notable medications such as Viagra, Eliquis, and Ultomiris. Before joining Alnylam, he was Head of U.S. at Alexion, where he drove significant growth through first-in-class neurology product launches.

He spent the majority of his early career at Pfizer, where he established and led the North America rare disease unit as its President, advancing the company’s gene therapy and rare cardiology initiatives.

Tolga holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economics from Istanbul University and an MBA in Marketing and Supply Chain Management from Michigan State University. He also completed postgraduate studies in Marketing at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Marianna Fontana, M.D., is a Director of the University College London (UCL) Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) unit at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH), Professor of Cardiology and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the National Amyloidosis Centre, Division of Medicine, University College London. She has authored 284 publications. Dr. Fontana’s major clinical and research interests focus on the delivery of efficient and effective care for patients with amyloidosis, with a particular attention on new technologies. She was appointed Director of the UCL CMR unit at the RFH in 2015, which she founded, and Professor of Cardiology at UCL in 2020. She was awarded an intermediate fellowship from the British Heart Foundation in 2018. Dr. Fontana is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Michael Davies Early Career Award in 2021 and the BHF Fellow of the year award in 2022. She obtained her medical degree and qualifications as a cardiologist at the University of Pisa.

Jeff Molkentin, Ph.D., is a professor at the University of Cincinnati Department of Pediatrics, the Director of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Co-director of the University of Cincinnati Heart Institute. He was a Howard Hughes Investigator from 2008-2021 and was awarded the prestigious Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association. Dr. Molkentin’s research focuses on the regulation of cell death through the mitochondria, cardiac hypertrophy, extracellular matrix biology, fibroblast activity, stem cells in cardiac regeneration, transcription, and mechanisms of membrane stability in muscular dystrophy.

Kiran Musunuru, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.L., is the Scientific Director of the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases and the Director of the Genetic and Epigenetic Origins of Disease Program at the Cardiovascular Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the genetics of heart disease and seeks to identify genetic factors that protect against disease and use them to develop new therapies. Dr. Musunuru is also co-founder and Senior Scientific Advisor of Verve Therapeutics.

Iacopo Olivotto, M.D., is Chief of Cardiology at Meyer Children Hospital and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Florence, Italy. During the previous two decades, he has worked as a cardiologist at Cardiology at Careggi University Hospital in Florence, where he served as Head of the Cardiomyopathy Unit for over 10 years. Dr. Olivotto has authored over 300 publications in international peer-review journals and has played a role in designing and executing clinical trials on innovative therapies for genetic heart diseases, principally hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). He remains focused on various clinical and translational aspects of pediatric and adult cardiomyopathies and rare cardiac diseases.

Victoria Parikh, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Her clinical and scientific interests focus on inherited arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies, which are an increasingly recognized disease entity. Dr. Parikh is currently using patient cohort genetics, high throughput molecular biology and human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to study variant pathogenicity in cardiovascular disease, inherited cardiomyopathies, inherited arrhythmia, and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy.

Gene Yeo, Ph.D., is Principal Investigator and Professor at University of California, San Diego and has authored >200 publications. Dr. Yeo is a computational biologist who has made significant contributions to RNA biology and therapeutics. His primary research interest is in understanding the importance of RNA processing and the roles that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play in development and disease. Since inception, Dr. Yeo’s lab has focused on uncovering molecular principles by which RBPs affect gene expression, how RBP- mediated post-transcriptional gene networks contribute to cellular homeostasis in stem cells and the brain, and how mutations in RBPs lead to human developmental and neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Yeo is also a co-founder in Locanabio and Orbital Therapeutics, both RNA-based therapeutic companies.